Wanted: Pilot Tips on … Avionics and ADS-B

Have you equipped for ADS-B? What did you add to your plane and do you plan to add more? What did you learn from the experience that other pilots could benefit from? If you haven’t equipped yet, do you plan to by the 2020 mandate?

What other avionics have you added recently? Was it a worthwhile investment?

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I’ve got 2 Experimental aircraft. #1 is equipped with the Skyguard TWX EX along with both and IFly GPs as well as an Android running the iFly software as a backup. Both talk to the Skyguard unit giving a good look at the traffic around me.

Airplane #2 is using an old Skyradar weather only unit.

Now days, if you want ADS-B in, the home build Stratus makes the most sense at just over $100, or $200 if you want someone to build it for you. If I was building a plane today, I’d buy a Trig transponder with a WAAS 3 GPS source for ADS-B out, and use a Stratux for the ADS-B Receive. That solution would likely work for those in the certificated world as well.

My GA avionics recommendation …is Wait… do not spend a dime yet, on any GA oriented ADS-B, or reference any potential GA touted NextGen avionics beyond a simple non-WAAS non-LPV GPS. Wait until the GA oriented systems properly do RNP, data link, and ADS-A, -B, and -C, and prices come massively down, as is inevitable, as low cost drones drive the airspace solution, and as globally relevant air carrier C-N-S systems already do (NOT as BizAv touted NextGen systems, which are already largely obsolete). Just as one minor example, Sandel’s new Avilon is already shaking up many of the other heavy hitters top end but nonetheless outdated and overly expensive offerings.
There isn’t a prayer the ADS-B deadline is going to hold. The airlines are already likely getting relief to 2026. The DoD will never comply. Foreign operators will never comply.
Further, and worst of all, NextGen is never going to economically work as presently configured. It is heading straight toward a massive $40B failure.
Only a massively re-designed NextGen with substantially altered criteria for each of the C-N-S elements (e.g., reduced NIC and NAC for ADS-B as in all other countries globally) stands a chance of actually working at any affordable cost.
Further, the chance of Congress soon busting up FAA and splitting out ATS as a separate ANSP is again increasing (the Rep. Schuster led effort).

I’ve been exactly on the mark for over 50 years now, all through the eras of MLS, A-SCAN, CO-SCAN, ISMLS, TRSB, MicroVision, ILM, DECCA, Turboclair and scores of other FAA/CAA boondoggles and follies! This errant FAA NextGen direction isn’t new. In fact, it’s almost a direct parallel to the failed ideas of the 40s, 50s, and 60s, with the host of other bad ideas authorities sometimes once considered or pushed for GCA/PAR, GEE, and many others globally, that now would have been disastrous. Instead, Australia, Canada, and many other states are much closer to having the ADS part correct, with vastly simpler criteria not needing 91.225/91.227, with FAA’s massively overspecified NIC/NAC, and WAAS. FAA’s ADS-B used to drive “pseudo radar” is still fatally flawed. You’re mostly wasting your money at this point. Much will change by 2020. Mark my words.

@Bradley. Sir, rules and compliance deadlines change all the time, and are even rescinded… I can cite countless examples. By now, even by ICAO SARPS, we were supposed to be 100% MLS operational (the Mythical Landing System). Same with aborted once foolish FAA ideas such as VDL Mode 3 and ATN. So 2020 is about as firm as uncured jello, especially since the probability of airline compliance by then is virtually nil, and there are indications the airlines will get relief until at least 2026.Military and foreign airline compliance is virtually assured to never meet 2020, and that doesn’t even consider drones, which will be a major airspace design consideration player by 2020. So anybody that believes FAA’s present self-serving ADS-B hype is simply one who doesn’t understand either the global aviation industry, or history.

Don’t get that worked up Reality. Many decades is our resident stereotypical glass half empty angry elderly gentleman. He provides an alternate view for the devils advocate side of the argument. That being said if you see a constructive or positive comment from him, you better go out and get a lotto ticket. We all have things that set us off though. Mine is seeing an accident report that could have been prevented very easily by proper checklist usage.